


Had Me Low, Had Me Down

by lady_ragnell



Series: A Foggy Day (In London Town) [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt has lunch with Foggy's favorite great-aunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Had Me Low, Had Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** mentions throughout of Peggy's canonical dementia
> 
> Title is still from "A Foggy Day in London Town." At the moment I don't have any particular ideas about what comes next in this series, but I did at a "pre-relationship" tag because I am pretty certain that's where things are going if and when I write future installments!

“Angie Martinelli,” says Matt's phone on a Saturday afternoon, and reads the name three more times before Matt thinks to answer it. He and Angie have each other's numbers in case of emergency, but he's never called her and she only called him once to ask what Foggy wanted for his birthday. He knows the Martinelli side of the family less well than the Nelsons, but he knows Angie is Foggy's favorite relative.

“Hello, Ms. Martinelli,” he says when he manages to pick up the phone.

“You're leaving an old woman waiting,” she says, a joke even if it sounds like she's scolding. “And I'm very sure I told you to call me Angie, Matthew.”

“Of course. Angie.” Matt clears his throat. He was almost asleep on the couch, resting a bruised rib so he can go out later. “May I ask why you're calling? Is something wrong with Foggy?”

She laughs. It's a pleasant laugh, a little scratchy. She always seems to be laughing—says that after the life she's led everything is a joke. “No, no emergency, stop sounding like you're ready to rush somewhere. I want to invite you to lunch after church tomorrow.”

Matt frowns, considering, but she sounds honest. He just can't imagine why. “I can come over earlier, if you like. I don't regularly attend Mass.”

“Go for me. Light me a candle. I never went much, and now it's too much waiting around for an old lady, but you never forget growing up Catholic. Just come over after, we'll go out for lunch, get me away from this cafeteria food.”

Matt is missing something. “You don't want to invite Foggy?”

“If I wanted to invite Foggy, Matthew, I would call him.”

Whatever it is, she doesn't want to say it on the phone, and that makes Matt nervous. “It might take a while to get there after—you don't mind it being a late lunch?”

“Not at all. And if you're worried, I'll pay your cab fare.”

Matt tries to protest that, but it's a losing battle, and by the time they hang up five minutes later, he's promised to make it to her residence by one to go out to lunch with her and discuss whatever it is she wants to discuss.

*

“Are you going to tell me what you wanted to speak to me about?” Matt asks when he and Angie are settled in a hole-in-the-wall diner, her with a coffee (“Decaf,” she says with disgust. “My cardiologist won't let me have the good stuff”) and Matt with tea and a BLT on the way at Angie's insistence.

“Blunt. I like it.” She knows he can't see her, but he can hear her fold her hands and lean in, like they're conspiring. “I want to know how you and Foggy are doing.”

Better. A little better, anyway. There are sore spots between them, yawning distances that were never there before and places Matt took care to keep away from Foggy under way too much scrutiny. But they're talking, and they're partners, and for a while, Matt didn't think he would have that anymore. “We're doing fine. Why do you ask?”

She makes a thoughtful noise, and then she sits back. “Because he came to talk to me a few weeks ago.” Matt freezes, and knows it's telling. “Said the two of you were fighting—well, that he was mad at you, but I can read between the lines. I'm not going to ask what it is, but I want to make sure he's okay, which means I want to make sure you both are.”

Matt sighs and rubs his forehead. The city has been taking a breath since Fisk was arrested, but he hasn't cut back. He knows things aren't going to get easier, not this soon, not after just one big fight. “We're getting there. He's getting there.”

“I've known people who keep secrets—don't look so surprised, Matthew, I know Foggy would have told you. I'm pretty sure I've had more spies than Tony winners at my dinner table over the years. Peggy Carter is my best friend in the world and I know even with all those files on the internet I don't know everything about her.” Angie sighs. “She taught me a lot, Matthew. And I read the papers.”

She can't be saying what he thinks she's saying, but she can't be saying anything else, either. It's probably not her first priority, though, so he swallows down his panic and his guilt and everything else in order to say “I'm really trying with him. Any lies I told him were ...” Not necessary, not to keep him safe, no matter how much Matt told himself both while he was still lying. “They weren't meant to hurt him.”

“Funny how that works.” She laughs and shakes her head, and it's a motion Foggy must have learned from her, because his hair sounds just the same against his shoulders when he's doing it. “I wish you could have met Peggy before the dementia. You would have loved her, and she probably would have tried to recruit you.”

“I wouldn't make a very good spy.”

“Maybe not. But I think she'd do a better job of this conversation than I'm doing.”

“You're doing fine.”

“Maybe.” She sighs. “Are you going to keep him safe?”

“Yes. Always. As safe as I can.” His injury in the bombings is going to be his last if Matt has anything at all the say about it.

“Right.” She leans in again. “And are you going to keep _yourself_ safe?” Matt breathes in. “No, don't answer, just think about it. I'm glad you're going to keep him safe, but my job is also to make sure he's happy, and I'm pretty sure he's not going to be if you die. I wouldn't have been if Peggy did.”

Matt swallows. “I can't necessarily control that.”

“I know that, kid. But you can try, and maybe you'll be more likely to do it for Foggy than for yourself.” She sits up straight, and her voice gets less hushed. “And here comes your sandwich and my pie. Tell me all about Foggy's and your first couple cases, I'm sure he downplayed his role.”

“He always does,” says Matt, grateful for the distraction, and lets her change the subject.

*

“I went out to lunch with Angie yesterday.”

Foggy, dropping his briefcase with a thump next to his desk, makes a confused noise. “My aunt Angie? How did that happen?”

“Yes, your aunt Angie.” Karen is in the main room, but she's on the phone with the office landlord about a broken window downstairs, so the conversation should be safe to have. “She said you'd come to see her while we were ...”

“Yeah.” Foggy's heart speeds up a little. It does that every time either of them refers to that horrible day in Matt's apartment, and it comes with a wash of other little cues, Foggy's hair shifting and his breath stuttering and his throat working and all of it adding up to lingering unhappiness that stings even though he has a right to it. “I thought she might have some insight. What with English and all.”

“I think it was a good conversation. Mine with her, I mean. I was surprised when she called, but it was good.”

“Good.” A few breaths, and Foggy is back to baseline. The moments of memory are getting shorter, anyway, though mention of Foggy's favorite relative is probably helping to keep him from dwelling on the fight. “I kind of want to ask, and I kind of really don't. Want to give me the rundown?”

Matt tilts his head and tries to think if there's anything easy and not embarrassing. He doesn't really know what to do with Angie telling him to make Foggy happy, to try to keep himself safe for Foggy's sake. “She wanted to make sure that you were okay. And that I'm okay.”

“Mm.” Foggy laughs a little. “Angie always liked you. Maybe you remind her of Peggy.”

“She said she wished we could really meet.”

“Yeah.” The grief over Peggy Carter is well-worn—a sigh, a hand moving over his forehead. Matt remembers him on the phone with his mother in his first year of law school, struggling not to cry and asking if he should come home for a visit before Peggy went to DC full-time, and how that was the last family event Matt wasn't invited to. “I don't know if you would have been best friends or anything, but I think you would get each other.”

Karen is wrapping up her conversation. Matt does his best to keep his voice under control. “If you'd ever like to talk about her, I'd like to hear it.” He knows some things, childhood stories and Foggy's reaction when the SHIELD files were dumped on the internet—he'd known some of it, but nowhere near all—but he'd like to hear more. “After work, maybe? We can order in. Have a quiet night.”

Foggy breathes in and out, sharply. Probably thinking of something to say and dismissing it just as fast. “Sure. I mean, I'm going to have to call Aunt Angie and tell her not to be nosy, but you can suck it up and pretend you're not eavesdropping.”

Matt smiles. “I'll look forward to it.” Karen is hanging up now. “After work?”

“After work,” Foggy agrees, and pats Matt's shoulder as he walks by to ask Karen a question about the potential client who called yesterday and might come for a visit today.

*

“ _Yes_ , seriously, everything is okay,” Foggy says low on the phone, locked in his bathroom more for a line drawn than because he thinks it will give him privacy, judging by how many times he told Matt he isn't allowed to say anything at all about whatever he overhears. “Your interfering worked, so please never do it again.”

Angie sounds tired—it's early in the evening for them, but it must be almost time for her to turn in—but she's still laughing. “I wasn't interfering. I was gathering information.”

“He's pretty curious about English.”

“You're the one who compared them in the first place.” Matt really wishes he knew more about whatever it is they discussed when Foggy wasn't speaking to him. “Tell him whatever you need to tell him, kiddo. And sometime soon all three of us will do lunch, okay? I'll be the envy of Manhattan, with you two on my arm.”

Foggy laughs. “You just want me to bring you more booze. But yeah, let's do it. I mean, I haven't asked Matt, but if he won't say yes to me, he'll say yes to you.”

Of course Matt will say yes to Foggy, but that's another bridge to mend, being able to spend time together without Matt worrying that Foggy will notice a bruise, or having to make an excuse to end a night early when he hears a scream. “He'll say yes,” says Angie, sounding sure. “Now, you said he's there, stop trying to needle me for calling him and go talk to him. We'll do that lunch.”

Matt tries his best to concentrate on listening to anything else while Foggy says goodbye, hangs up on the phone, and comes out of the bathroom, and almost misses Foggy saying his name a few seconds later. “You want a beer?”

“Sure.” He waits for Foggy to press it into his hand and clinks the bottles together, an informal toast. “How's Angie?”

“Okay. We're doing lunch with her sometime soon.” Foggy sits on the couch next to Matt—not close enough that they'll touch by accident, not far enough that he's pressed against the arm rest. Matt tries not to read too much into that. “But you knew that.” He sighs. “You know, Angie and English showed up to my first school play in first grade dressed up like it was the opera and cheered me on and took me out for a milkshake even though I had maybe three lines. In retrospect, I am pretty sure Peggy had just come in from a mission, she was looking kind of beat.”

Matt relaxes into the couch and takes a sip of beer. “Tell me all about it.”

Foggy sounds like he's smiling when he starts in on the story. It's a start.


End file.
